Living and earning, soul-feeding or spoon-feeding, who can earn how much is not dependent upon your degrees or the companies you work for. It depends upon your hard work and sustainability. The thirst to find hidden treasures, sheer belief in your capabilities, and then to be at the right place at right time.
Sharing my story here for all those youngsters who have come across the digital world in the last few years more than ever. It may become an inspiration for those who want to see farther from their desk, who want to win the world financially as well as want to feed their souls with a unique piece of work.
Who am I?
My name is Muhammad Tufail Abbas. I am the founder and CEO of Tufi Digital. I own a company representing my work and worth and that’s a great blessing and achievement in itself. I belong to a remote village of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where basic life facilities are provided as a consecrate only. In my early life, I saw my forefathers, parents, and siblings working hard on 9-5 jobs to earn their bread and butter. It was a routine set up as everything was written on board.
A cycle of sustainability, study, do have a nice job, fulfill your duties, take your monthly income and spend all on the expenses of your daily life. Where is the saving? How would you give the promised paradise to your partner and children? It is not an easy task with a lumpsum amount of salary that you get at the end of the month when you have great liabilities, serving your parents, feeding your family, paying heavy utility bills, etc.
Background
I had no digital presence before 2013. There was no concept of a laptop or a pc at my home. I got my first ever job with the help of a friend in a local agency and he offered me his pc for use. How pathetic it was to borrow something so worthy to be an essential part of your life and get a job with reference. My initial pay was Pak. Rs/- 1420 only. I was not the stereotype who would stop at a small success. I had running horses in my heart and those horses would urge me each day to learn more and more, strive for the unknown, and explore the digital world.
Career
Freelancing was one of the top heard voices in 2018. I got interested and my soul started running behind the mysteries of digital life. I joined Word Pres Basics and local SEO. My curiosity was raised day by day and urged me to dig deeper and denser with each passing day. I started getting training from Digi Skills and Youtube channels.
I created a Fiverr account of my own. Everyone has the first flight, I took my flight and I was really worried about the results. I didn’t earn a penny initially which gave me a pushback. Where I was going? What was my motive in life? What do I have to do with my skills or education? These were the questions hammering my mind day and night. After months of struggle and depression, I started getting small orders with minimum benefit, slowly it shifted to medium orders, and ultimately, I used to get bigger orders worthy of a great run over.
By January 2021, I got my company registered and my net worth was 3.7 million PKR. which was a great amount for me. Out of sheer happiness and motivation, I shared the memory on my Instagram account too.
Conquering the mountains is a phrase only but beneath the phase is always a long struggle that one has to go through to cross all the obstacles and achieve the highest score in the exam of life. It was not that simple to start the Fiver work and then earn. It took a real black phase when I started my journey. I had to face a backlash from the community, especially family and job since I had responsibilities being a runner of few liabilities. I searched a lot and used to spend maximum time of the day in search of a big NO or a big YES. It was a drastic situation.
You would lose your temperament if you cannot endure the harshness of a big fact that you have to survive. I demanded help from my father and brother. They were angels in disguise for me since they took the responsibility of my family for a period of three promised months and I drowned myself in this small world of myths.
The moment I took a breath of relief with the initial small earned orders, my company gave a big punch in my nose and deduced my monthly package from Rs. 50,000 to 30,000. It was a big crash, I had arranged and scheduled all my expenses according to that package which I was getting for the last five years. I was neither offered any promotion, nor any recognition or reward for my hard work in the last few years. I was working like a bull taking rounds against the same cycle without any motivation.
Motivation is followed by appreciation, creativity in your work, love of your routine, by gaining enthusiasm for something new every day. There was no motivation in my office work, no bonus, no increment, no appreciation, and then this pushback, a salary deduction. Rather than discouraging me, it gave me more encouragement to act rebelliously. Rather than shedding tears over my loss, I got fresh energy and power to get success in my passion, to earn for myself and my family through the creative skills and abilities I was bestowed upon. I had the least idea of my inner powers until I was brushed hard by these noxious circumstances.
I was getting discouragement from my office continuously. I didn’t want to lose my job too since the association does pay and I had spent more than seven years at the same place. I wanted them to encourage me but I was getting negativity from them rising my weaknesses of poor English, weak communication skills, and zero motivation. I struggled and Allah blessed me. After a few months of heavy heart, my labor started paying off and I was able to earn a minimum of one lac rupees per month. It was great. A great time to celebrate my victory over my fears. I outscore thirty percent of my total income to my local students and teammates counting up to two million out of five million.
Thanks to My Teachers & Mentors
Never forget the first step of the ladder which gave you the way to the sky, my father always taught me. Neither I did forget. I want to acknowledge here all those persons and their sincere efforts to make me what I am today. It may not only motivate all those who want to follow in my footsteps but it’s a token of appreciation for my mentors. I learned a few technical skills and expertise from a few renowned personalities in my life. They gave me their precious time, energy, and skills and purchased my soul for life. I would give a big thanks to Hisham Sarwar Sahib to teach me copywriting and Canvas since it was a dilemma for me at a time to learn their names even.
I got a million worth of motivation from the effortful life of Azad Chaiwala Bhai, Qasim Ali Shah, and Sheikh Atif Sahib. Motivation is not a skill to be learned. It is a god-gifted passion that keeps your heart enlightened like a light at the end of a tunnel, it provides you an insight into the life of those who were once like you and they got a rise to the sky. I also got motivated by all these persons, by their struggle, by their efforts, and by the success they achieved. That moment of celebration was the dream I was running behind. I learned a lot of business tricks and deals from Dr. Vivek Bandra, he was not a teacher but he was an entrepreneur who taught me the crests and troughs of the life of a businessman.
I would have remained stuck at the first step if there were not Aleem Iqbal, Moz Academy, Udemy, and Amit Tiwari who scratched and found the hidden jewel in my raw personality. They were the soul searchers to bring out the finest quality of SEO work in me. I learned local SEO with the help of a recent company, past seniors, and William Jones, Chris Plamer. Like any other subject, the digital world has several departments that need searching.
After a certain time of dig and finding, you get to know where the real gem is located for you. I searched and touched all the key departments to cover all my discrepancies and become the expert digital man. I learned content writing from Fiza Tahir Sahiba and Muhammad Talha sahib. WordPress was being taught by Faisal Zameer. Practice makes a man perfect and this was the phrase I got to learn from my own experience. Communication skills were a subject that could not be learned from anyone. It was polished only by practice.
My Achievements
Counting my blessings may dishonor them but still as a word of encouragement I can give you a handful list of my achievements. I helped my friends and students to earn more than one and a half crore rupees in less than three years. I earned more than five million in the same period. I started two projects, a local private company Tufi Digital and a limited UK company in a foreign land. It’s an honor for me as well as my country to represent Pakistan in a foreign land. I remained Fiver Choice Badge for two years which was an honor bestowed on me for my work and acknowledgment. I got the medal to earn more than two million from a single client on Fiver, and that is the level of trust from the client for my work and word of promise.
I was top-rated at Upwork for the quality of work. A few months ago, I featured Digi Skills and completed more than six hundred orders on Fiver. As a matter of fact, I was surprised by the continuous success and blessings after a small sacrifice at the initial time. To be humble and kind to humanity and to remember the tough times I had to go through, I started a local welfare society with the help of friends, with the name Salsabeel Welfare Society. We should always be thankful to our Creator for his countless blessings and rewards by being humble and down to earth and this was the skill I learned from Rehan Allah Wala, I salute him for making me a better human being through his words of teachings.
After paying word of appreciation to all those who taught me skills in the digital world, I have no words to express my gratitude for my friends who real friends in need are. I have their back always either financially or socially or morally, wherever I need them, they are there with their full hospitality. I would not be able to reach the ladder of success if I would not get my laptop from a friend and this story continues today.
I want to thank Allah for all those achievements and successes. I learned many new and worthy things from my journey toward success but the most important lesson is the spread of knowledge. The more you give the more you achieve. What goes around comes around. I have tried my best to encourage our youth to apply their skills and get to know themselves through soul searching. Who knows you are a big artist in yourself. Let’s take a ride and search your inner artist through many challenges that may ultimately help you to write your name on one of those plaques. If you need any help regarding local SEO or branding, I would be a text message away.
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